Medics attend to soldiers with simulated injuries before they can be loaded onto the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter behind them to be evactuated. It was part of a mass casualty drill on Tuesday at Fort Stewart’s Evans Army Airfield to help prepare troops for an August deployment to Afghanistan.

Medical soldiers at Fort Stewart’s Evans Army Airfield remove a simulated-wonded soldier from an ambulance so he can be evacuated by a helicopter during a mass casualy evacuation exercise as part of the 3rd Infantry Division’s Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion’s training for an upcoming deployment to Afghanistan in August.

A “wounded” soldier is removed from a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter during a mass casualty drill at Fort Stewart’s Evans Amry Airfield on Tuesday. The drill is part of a mission rehearsal exercise to prepare the 3rd Infantry Division’s Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion and other units that will be under its control for a deployment to Afghanistan in August.

Medics hurried out of a tent Tuesday afternoon as a sudden wave of explosions echoed across the flight line at Fort Stewart’s Evans Army Airfield.

The soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division’s Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion quickly prepared their battalion aid station to treat and evacuate any injured soldiers.

Within moments, numerous “wounded” soldiers were being rushed from surrounding buildings for treatment.

The mass casualty drill was part of a larger training regimen at the airfield that is helping prepare the 3rd ID Headquarters — and other U.S. and international forces — for its upcoming deployment to southern Afghanistan where it will head the International Security Assistance Force’s Regional Command South.

The mission rehearsal exercise — called Unified Endeavor because it includes elements from the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force and troops from Australia, Germany, Canada, Belgium, Spain and England — consists of multiple training phases to help the groups work together under 3rd ID commander Maj. Gen. Robert Abrams, who will head Regional Command South when he deploys in August with 3rd ID Headquarters.

Drills like Tuesday’s are important in any pre-deployment preparations because soldiers must know that they have a responsibility to respond to any casualties around them, said Maj. Dale Sharp, a physicians assistant with 3rd ID headquarters.

“We want everyone to understand that everyone has a role in a mass (casualty),” he said. “They have to respond to their local areas, check for wounded people by sweeping through (and) giving them first aid care as needed, and take those casualties out to the battalion aid station or combat support hospital depending on where we are.”

Once the casualties received attention from medics, they were placed on ambulances and taken to an awaiting UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter for evacuation.

The chaotic nature of such drills, said Sgt. Linsey McCray, the aid station’s chief noncommissioned officer, allows soldiers to understand what it feels like when they deploy to Afghanistan in August.

“It gives us the opportunity to train and see different types of accidents, different types of traumas, different injuries,” she said. “It shows the younger soldiers that have never deployed before … what happens in trauma when you have a patient on the table, (and) how to effectively treat those injuries, and doing so in an expedient manner. We’ve got to do the best job we can and then quickly (evacuate) them to a higher level of care.”